


Royalactin

by orphan_account



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Aftercare, Awkwardness, Bathing/Washing, Body Modification, Bulges and Nooks, Come Inflation, Domestic Kink, Egg Laying, Eggpreg, Eggs, Inflation, Insecurity, M/M, Masturbation, Oral Sex, Oviposition, Pheromones, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Tentabulges
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-06 18:28:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4232226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"But he had seen the eggs Sollux chose, plain white and faux-chitinous. They were only objects. He had seen no elaborate pulsing, vibrating tubes concealed around the hive, no geometric anomalies or live creatures in the egg jar, and with growing disbelief Karkat began to wonder if Sollux was inexplicably on the vanilla side of what was turning out to be an entire subculture of oviposition."</p><p>Sollux picks up some jelly and a dozen eggs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladysekhmetka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladysekhmetka/gifts).



> Trolls being into egg-laying as a kink or subculture brings up some neat questions! What dialectic would that subculture have belonged to in Alternian society? How is that kink subversive? What would Karkat and Sollux individually like about it? It would be so cool to see a lot of different takes on oviposition as an Alternian kink, wow.
> 
> A really cool prompt! Hoping the result satisfies.

Karkat entered the nutritionblock of his shared hive with the wariness of someone expecting an attack, taking his place opposite Sollux at the table. Sollux had lately been cultivating the sort of expression Karkat had grown to associate with manic episodes, when everything seemed like a good idea and taking on five or more new projects in an impulsive spree of productivity was the norm. "Okay," he said without preamble. "Let's hear it."

"Hey," Sollux greeted. His fangs, regrown over time, were disturbingly white when he smiled. "Okay. So I bet you're wondering why I've called you here tonight."

"'Here' meaning 'into the next room?' Even though you could have told me whatever this is literally anywhere in the hive."

"Yes," Sollux responded with perfect equanimity. "Exactly. And it's because I have something to show you that's kind of weird, so I'm going to just kind of introduce it after you prepare yourself to not flip your shit completely. A _partial_ shitflip I can deal with. I'll wait."

Karkat paused, considering the possibilities. A new nookworm, maybe. A massive psionic burn hole in the wall concealed cleverly by furniture. A newly developed platformer with an unconventional physics engine. Possibly a huge and ill-considered trollbal tattoo across Sollux's entire lower back. The information provided could not narrow down the infinite and almost uniformly terrible possibilities. "Okay, I'm ready." The thermal hull flipped open, surrounded by a violet haze. A clear glass container floated from the interior.

"This is royal jelly," Sollux said solemnly, psionically placing the flask in front of Karkat. "A fuckton of royal jelly."

"Oh my god. Seriously?" Karkat felt his face warm in a visible flush at the sight of the thin, milky fluid, the other concepts in his mind vanishing like mist. "How did you afford that? Did you get that much from your own bees?"

"Most of it." Sollux grinned crookedly, his cheekbones faintly golden. "I usually sell off my excess. This is pure. No mind honey." His smile faded as Karkat continued to gaze in silence at the glass, the faint, glistening swirl of the liquid inside.

"Huh," he finally said. "So you're gonna go through with it?" Sollux winced, glancing away.

"Not necessarily. Not alone. But I got this to...show off, I guess, so I'm not asking you to do anything? I should have thought this part out better, _fuck_." He shifted uncomfortably in his chair, a faint tracery of red-blue light snapping from the tips of his horns as his confidence faded. "I mean it's weird, but either way I had to show you before you saw it in the hull and drank the whole thing to spite me for not labeling it properly or something. Don't pretend that isn't an actual thing you would do-"

"Because you should totally try it," Karkat interrupted, his voice so loud and abrupt in the quiet hive that he fell silent in startlement. "Well, fuck, next time maybe I'll try leading up to that and not sounding like a weird degenerate, but yeah." He watched with wariness the slow brightening of Sollux's features, the quirk at the corners of his mouth that exposed his secondary fangs.

"Next time," Sollux echoed. "Yeah KK, this exact situation happens all the time, you'll have all the chances in-"

"Let me stew in my abject nubsucking shame and move on," snapped Karkat.

"Ehehe, yeah, okay. You know how it actually works, right?" Flushed more deeply, Sollux licked his lips. "Before you just agree like a grubfucking moron, like I'm pretty sure you would without thinking about it." Karkat bared his nubby teeth without any real venom. Sollux's excitement proved contagious; he found himself imagining the possibilities, remembering visuals.

"Fuck you. It makes you able to...retain things."

"Wow, KK, that's so specific I can almost believe you watched it yourself, which I know you did because I was there-"

"Oh my god, I'm leading up to it! Casually this time." Sollux watched him, grin widening again. "Okay, yeah, so I learned about it from your fucked-up pornos. Go into detail. I know you want to."

"Good. I know more about it anyway, because bees." Sollux steepled his long fingers and regarded the insects buzzing idly around the nutritionblock. "And I did practice saying this part. So royal jelly is what makes larvae queens instead of workers," he explained. "But it has...effects on a lot of species."

"Wow, how specific. Glad you deigned to give me this amazing lesson-"

"I fucking swear, KK." Despite the sharpness of his tone Sollux's eyes had half-closed, shimmering faintly in the dim light. "So what it does to trolls is...well." He trailed off as the flush spread to the tips of his ears. Karkat watched him, eyes intense and limned in shadow. "So, about bee mating. The queen bee flies out with her drones and mates a lot. Usually it's just one time in her life. She stores their genetic material in her spermatheca."

"Yeah," Karkat said, subdued.

"Our spermatheca are pretty much vestigial at this point. It's still big, but the duct tapers shut." Sollux cleared his throat. "I mean, that part you knew as long as you did basic schoolfeeding. After about twenty nights on the jelly..."

"It opens," Karkat said, his voice rougher than intended. Sollux shifted in his chair, looking equal parts embarrassed and aroused, a faint flush spreading up the column of his throat.

"Yeah. And we, I...can retain solid things for it to, um. Fertilize."

"So did you just buy the jelly or did you pick up eggs too, you sick fuck?" Sollux inhaled sharply, a faint chirr like the words alone turned him on. Karkat felt his own face flaming in a brilliant flush. "Yeah, okay, I don't have room to talk."

"I got them. You wanna see?" Karkat stared at the milky, clear fluid at rest in its container.

"Yeah."

"Okay, cool. I didn't know if that would be too weird or something." Sollux's horns lit up with delicate arcs of lightning as he retrieved a glass jar from some secret place in his personal respiteblock. An individual egg, smooth, faux-chitinous, and several inches in diameter, looked easy to take. Karkat gaped at the sight of a dozen heaped together as the jar landed on the table. "I tried to pretend at implanting a few the other day while you were sleeping in your respiteblock. Just to experiment."

"Did you like it?" Despite the uncomfortable atmosphere Karkat's bulge moved heavily in its sheath at the concept of Sollux filling himself, expanding his holding sac and his abdomen to accommodate the unaccustomed intrusion. "Being..."

"Being fucking stuffed?" _Thtuffed_ , Karkat wanted to say mockingly, but the word died in his throat. Vividly he imagined Sollux depositing the clutch one by one in a pail, coaxing them quietly out of his own body, struggling not to make a sound. "Hurts. It sort of...I wanted to do it again. Did you want to..."

"I want to think it over first." Sollux nodded, frowning soberly. "That isn't a no, I just...it's some heavy shit when you're doing it to yourself." He looked away, flush deepening. "Does it fuck with me too?"

"The pheromones will make you want to contribute. It’s like the synthetic shit the drones used to use, but...not synthetic? It’s not like I need you to bring me food or wash me off or whatever like you see in the videos,” he went on, his voice defensive and nervous. “But the jelly won't even fuck with me forever. The effects go away by the next molt.” Sollux shook his head, biting his lip. His gaze was directed at the table as far as Karkat could tell. "Sorry, that sounded weird. I'm not trying to make you decide." He spread his thin hands, showing his palms. "It's totally up to you, KK. I can sell this shit off at a fucking massive profit if you're not feeling it."

"Yeah, I should just know about all of it first." Karkat looked at the flask as Sollux returned it to the hull with a thought, as the cylinder of eggs was banished to its place in Sollux’s respiteblock. The quiet block grew heavy with the weight of possibility. "I'll read about it."

"Sure." Sollux shifted restlessly in the chair, twining his fingers together in different configurations before looking up with an awkward half-smile. "Fuck, let's just watch a movie or something."

"God, yes, let's."

 

* * *

 

Karkat’s research that morning proved easily derailed by the massive variety of information on the finer points of the subject, most of which he had never considered. Expensive toys emulated primitive ovipositors or thick, inflexible shafts for those fascinated by the idea of being impregnated by something untrollish and strange. Eggs of different sizes, colors, and textures contrasted with solid objects almost completely unlike eggs, strange or angular shapes designed to cause discomfort or increased pleasure when retained and expelled.

On the most extreme end were real eggs. Karkat watched in astonishment and vague nausea, discomfited by the sight of what looked like young nookworms squirming from a spread, bronze nook as the carrier panted and shuddered with pleasure. Watching Sollux birth live things, seeing him push them out of himself like an animal, would put the scene well past Karkat’s own limits. But he had seen the eggs Sollux chose, plain white and faux-chitinous. They were only objects. He had seen no elaborate pulsing, vibrating tubes concealed around the hive, no geometric anomalies or live creatures in the egg jar, and with growing disbelief Karkat began to wonder if Sollux was inexplicably on the vanilla side of what was turning out to be an entire subculture of oviposition.

He had never imagined Sollux being on the vanilla side of _anything_. It took Karkat a minute to process the thought as a serious possibility. Maybe he was just working his way up, starting at fake eggs implanted by hand in a natural progression to some insertion machine with symbiotic larvae. Karkat tried to imagine starting one of the elaborate machines, guiding a ridged, vibrating ovipositor deep into Sollux and watching the implantation take place. “Holy _fuck_ ,” he snapped, shaking his head to banish the image before returning to his research.

Every informative piece on the subject, from mainstream articles depicting it as a bizarre niche phenomenon to first-person accounts by enthusiasts, agreed uniformly that carrying could be extremely dangerous and almost never was. Egg-binding, when eggs became entrapped in the holding sac and could not be moved, was rare in trolls who had taken the right doses of jelly for the right timespan prior to implantation. The body expelled overabundant genetic material, so the abdominal curvature was considerable but mostly harmless. Nothing would affect Karkat’s own body but the pheromones commanding him to serve; indefinite amounts of chemically-induced pailing for half a perigee.

There was no way Sollux's unmodified body could have fully accepted any eggs during his experimentation, Karkat knew, but it was easy to imagine the bump they would make inside him if he did. He imagined how it would feel to insert the eggs, to add his material over the course of weeks, what Sollux's slim frame would look like carrying so much. An uncomfortable fullness, he knew, a strain on the body; in videos the carrier was always cared for, fed and cleaned amidst the constant mating.

Karkat could perform those functions. His bulge rolled slightly in his sheath at the thought. Even without the benefit of egg-carrier pheromones the concept of Sollux ordering him to provide material and care, needing him so much for anything at all, roused a hot fierceness in his thorax.

“Yeah,” he told the husktop, feeling the weight of the word. “Okay. Sure. Let’s try that.”

 

* * *

 

Sollux leaned back against the recuperacoon wall in the relative privacy of his own respiteblock, taking a deep breath before inserting the first egg. With only a week on the jelly after Karkat's agreement, his holding sac remained inflexible and incapable of retaining solid objects. His spermatheca stayed demurely closed for all that the sopor left his muscles relaxed. Only a few eggs would fit into his body without making him feel as though he would split open.

Sourly he speculated that even two might be a tall order if he had to get them all the way in unassisted. Try as he might, the angle of his hand in the narrow recuperacoon could not circle his half-extruded bulge enough to allow his fingers room to coax and maneuver the tough shell, helped not at all by the smooth roundness of the egg in the slime. Canting his hips forward, he stretched his nook around the egg and slipped it in as deep as he could, clenching experimentally. The effect was more clinical than arousing. The egg by itself was too small to fill even the tight channel of his nook and his fingers could do nothing to propel it fully into the holding sac above.

It would be possible, if challenging, to push it in fully with psionics. Retrieving it from his still-firm holding sac would be much harder. He fished another egg from the jar and slid it against the lips of his nook, pushing the hard roundness of it along the slit before feeding it into himself. The hard shells bumped together and Sollux paused, taking a breath at the sharp shock of collision in such a sensitive area. It would be easy to push both eggs up if he lay down outside the recuperacoon and spread further, if he reached past his bulge and buried his fingers inside. It would be easy to feed egg after egg in until the first one filled him.

"Then it stays there and fucks you up before you're ready," he reprimanded himself. With a thoughtful hand he tapped the hard shells together to enjoy the sensation, rigid and strange where his body expected soft flexibility. The thought of Karkat doing it for him, inserting and implanting the eggs in places impossible to reach alone, made him squirm. The thought of the pheromones he would exude afterward made his bulge extend fully, curling hopefully against his abdomen and twisting in the psionic touch that surrounded it in pulsing waves.

Sollux took another egg from the jar, biting his lip as it joined the others, and fumbled for another as he held the eggs inside in place with his other hand. With the fourth egg he could push the first high enough to reach the sensitive boundary beyond which eggs should not yet pass, could work the smooth curve of shell against that internal rim and stroke his bulge in slow, languid psionic motions. He imagined those hard shells pushed into him continuously, how it would feel to be stuffed and to feel his sac contracting around the foreign objects, his body accepting the intrusion and making him different: untrollish, hungry, strange. He could lie motionless even as the chemistry of his body grew potent and commanding. Sollux imagined how it would feel to be bred.

"Fuck," he sighed, blue lightning snapping from his horntips as he worked the eggs harder inside him. A careless push nearly rammed the first egg through, almost tipped it past the boundary of his sac, and with a gasp he clenched and shivered and felt it slide harmlessly out and away. The intensity of how close it had come sent a rush of blood to his head and with a faint groan Sollux poured his material into the slime, shuddering in relief as his nook tensed and all four eggs slipped easily, smoothly out.


	2. Chapter 2

Sollux unfolded the frame of the concupiscent couch in the middle of the recreationblock floor, dragging the squishy purple cushion from the closet psionically as he locked the legs and struts in place. Not for the first time he speculated that it got enough use to be left out perennially, but the act of setting it up and using it was fraught with a certain ceremony that made pailing less casual, more of a statement to be made. Before Aradia had gone to travel the new world, she had lived in the same hive with him, and the paleness of their cohabitation allowed for only a foldable couch that could be put away when not needed by one or the other for visits with others.

One strut was difficult to lock in place every time, slightly bent from some visit or another. It needed a few sharp taps with the heel of his hand before it clicked. He sighed and wiped his forehead. It was more tedious than complex, mostly due to the flat plane of the couch being large enough for two, but once done the couch would stay in place as he lay on it and prepared himself for laying. It would get tiring to sleep apart from his comfortable recuperacoon, but as time wore on it would become harder and harder to sleep upright.

The feeling was strange, doing such mundane prep work for something so extreme. He slotted the soft purple cushion into place with a satisfying clack. Deep inside him there was a growing appetite, a looseness and hunger that was his body learning to crave implantation. His pheromones had taken on a commanding edge that made Karkat look at him questioningly when he entered a room, a curious lift of the eyebrows as though asking what he needed; warmth blossomed in his nook at the memory as he psionically took the pails from the top shelf and nudged them beneath the couch.

Before the implantation he would need to send out one last report to the company that had hired him to test their security. That too was more tedious than anything; it would be easier to tell them what hadn’t gone wrong than to enumerate all the things that had, but after the implantation he would feel less inclined to focus on work. Sollux grinned in satisfaction regardless as he returned to his respiteblock to enjoy the hollowness of his body, the flat and implacable need. His tedium would be broken soon enough.

 

* * *

 

Karkat, kneeling beside the concupiscent couch, reached into the open jar beside him for the first egg. The faux-chitin was smooth in his hands and he fumbled it as he pressed it awkwardly to Sollux's waiting nook. It fell unceremoniously to the black vinyl that Sollux had spread beneath himself for easier cleaning. "Ehehe, nice." Karkat glared up at Sollux. He splayed wider on the concupiscent couch, propped on his elbows to watch the proceedings.

It struck Karkat as unfair that he could be fully clothed and still feel at a disadvantage against Sollux, stark naked and lounging with insufferable smugness. "Fuck you." He picked up the egg and found his hands trembling. The room was heavy with musk and he wanted so badly to bury himself in Sollux, to give him what his body needed. "You'd have dropped it too."

"Psionically? It's not like I'd forget-" Sollux went quiet as the egg slid into him, Karkat's palm cupping to press it in before his fingers pushed it deeper. "Okay. That feels...really nice."

"Does it feel like last time you tried it?" Karkat asked to fill the silence. Muscles contracted suddenly around him and he jumped as the egg slipped inside. Sollux's hips bucked with the force and he gasped, eyes wide and luminescent in shock.

"No. I. I didn't do that last time." He whined, squirming on the couch as though trying to settle it inside or work it out. "Feels...nnh. Ah. Shit, I can feel it _in_ there."

"Oh my god." Karkat breathed out hard through his nose before reaching back into the jar, his shaking fingers skittering along the smooth, white surfaces. The egg he had been holding was gone, he realized, the fact sinking in. He had implanted Sollux. "Okay, that's, that's a thing that happened. I'm dealing-"

"More," Sollux ordered, pheromones rich and imperative, and Karkat's hand closed immediately over a shell. The second egg proved easier than the first. Karkat felt surer how far it should be pushed, how Sollux would clench and pull at his fingertips to let him know. Sollux gasped, chirred faintly, but said nothing as it vanished inside and Karkat picked up another.

"Still good?" he asked, his tone mingling curiosity and trepidation as he pressed the third egg into Sollux's spread, gleaming nook. A faint trickle of golden material puddled beneath him. The only answer was a spasm and a faint moan as Sollux fell back on the concupiscent couch with a vinyl squeak. “Hey.” He hefted the fourth egg, steadying his hand. “I need you to tell me.”

"It’s good. It's - _hnn!_ \- not enough," Sollux panted, curling his fingers against the sheet beneath him as the fourth egg vanished into his nook. Karkat's bulge squirmed in his jeans every time Sollux's body clenched and twitched around the tips of his fingers, each time the harshness of his breathing broke against a throaty noise.

"Okay," Karkat said, consciously hefting the next egg and trying not to focus on the soft gleam of Sollux's nook around his fingers, how it would feel to have his bulge squeezed in those contracting muscles. "You're getting more, just-"

"Slower," Sollux interrupted. "I'm filling up." The fifth egg he greeted with a soft hiss as it pushed slowly in. His claws left brief furrows in the vinyl as his nook swallowed it down. He pressed a tentative hand against his lower belly; Karkat's bulge coiled sharply at the sight of his long fingers caressing his abdomen, the soft gloss of his nook spread and so slick, so ready for insertion.

"Are you full?" Karkat asked, almost tremulous. He had assumed the videos played this part up but Sollux squirmed the same way as he was filled, his body jerking, his breath hitching softly like the feeling was too intense for him. The effect was so striking that it took Karkat by surprise, scared him when he saw the glazed, overwhelmed expression on Sollux's face. "Should we stop?"

" _No_." Karkat looked at the remaining eggs heaped in the jar, comparing the collective girth of them to Sollux's narrow frame. "It feels like...this is right. Don't stop." Sollux gasped, his voice raw, at the sixth egg. His nook still felt tight around Karkat's pushing fingertips; his body took the eggs hungrily, gulping as though to absorb them even as the seventh forced a ragged cry from his throat.

"Shit!" Karkat pressed deeper in an attempt to retrieve it and found it beyond the reach of his hands. "I can't get it out-"

"It's _fine_." Sollux's eyes, as far as Karkat could tell, had gone glazed and unfocused; he licked his lips and offered an uncertain grin. "More, KK. I'm not done."

"We have five more and you're screaming, you can't-" Sollux took Karkat's hand, painted gold to the knuckle with material, and pressed it to the base of his abdomen. "Oh." Karkat shivered at the deep-buried shuffle of solid spheres beneath his palm. His bulge lashed hard against the seam of his pants in reawakened interest as he fumbled for an eighth egg with his other hand. Clumsily he fed it into Sollux's waiting body until he felt the sudden shift and jumble, muscle and eggs expanding beneath his palm. "Oh, oh, fuck, that's weird."

"I can feel them," Sollux said, his voice choked with exertion despite the placid, dazed expression on his face. "There's room. I need more." When Karkat withdrew to get a ninth egg he placed his other hand on Sollux's lower abdomen instead to feel the jostle of eggs again as Sollux's nook consumed it from his fingers, his internal holding sac stretching to accommodate the new intrusion. Sollux, hissing through his teeth, went rigid in obvious discomfort. Karkat rubbed at the area, shifting and settling the eggs beneath his palm until Sollux's spine relaxed and he let out a soft breath of relief.

"Does that help? I read that’s meant to help."

"No, KK, just sighing in forbearance here."

"So you do feel better." He fished out the tenth egg with shaking, wet fingers, almost dropping it back into the smeared jar. "You're welcome, nookstick." Now that he knew what to look for it was obvious where the flat abdomen beneath his hand was developing a small curve. Sollux moaned and shivered despite the exaggerated care of the insertion, panting in distress as his nook spasmed. Karkat felt the jostle and shift and cautiously massaged the eggs back into place. "Sollux, I see it, I can actually fucking see it, you're doing so good-"

"More. So close." He moved his legs farther apart, the glisten of his nook familiar as it spread around the eleventh egg. A dew of sweat broke out on his face.

"How does it feel? Are you okay?"

"It hurts. It's fucking incredible how good it feels to...to get this, hnn-" He shuddered and whined at the clench and fullness of his own body, whimpered as Karkat massaged the egg into place from outside with gentle rolls of his palm. Sollux's hands balled into tense fists. "You're so warm."

"This is the last one." Karkat held it up, hard as it was to tell if Sollux's glassy eyes focused on it. "We did this. I can't believe we actually did it. Are you ready?"

"Yeah. Nnngh." He arched his back for the final egg, closing his eyes tight and gritting his teeth. His nook clenched before the egg was deep, tightening as though to force it out.

"Hey." Karkat paused in concern and Sollux moaned, shaking his head.

" _Please_." The effort it cost him to relax was obvious; he let the tension out in a long, throaty cry, going lax enough to let the final egg inside. He tensed back up as soon as it slipped past to join the others, his muscles quivering, his belly faintly but noticeably curved.

"Okay. Okay." Karkat found himself equally tense, breathing just as hard as he wiped the sweat from his brow. "Shit, okay, that's all of them."

"More," Sollux said, opening eyes wet with what looked like tears. "I need more."

"I just said that's all of them, did this make you stupid? Are you, are you okay-"

" _Fuck me,_ " Sollux snapped. "Am I being too subtle or something? Did this make _you_ stupid?" Karkat inhaled the heady smell of him, somehow more potent now that his body had accepted the eggs. It had grown unfamiliar, but there was a sweetness there that demanded attention and a musk that forced impulses to the surface; he wanted much less to argue than to comply.

The urge to argue, however, remained strong as he fumbled at his jeans and leaned over Sollux to take a deeper breath. "Yeah. I mean yeah I want to do that, not yeah you're being subtle. I don't know if you know what that means." There was a richness to the scent, something that made Karkat's thoughts go fuzzy and bright around the edges and slowed his motions as he worked out what to say. "Also no I'm not stupid, not that that's a thing that even needed to get said, you rude nookhole-"

"KK." Sollux slipped two fingers between his own legs, stroking over the slickness of his nook, and reached up to smear the pheromone-rich fluid over the base of Karkat's left horn.

" _Hnnn,_ " he whined involuntarily, scalp prickling as sensation washed down his spine. It was everything he had expected and more, liquid desperation, the imperative chemicals of Sollux's body leaving no room for argument.

"Does it feel that good?" Sollux asked, sounding genuinely curious. "I read it's meant to help," he added before Karkat fumbled at his jeans and, sighing in relief, let his bulge out in a thick red coil. "Wow, it seriously is like porn-"

"I've wanted this the whole fucking time," Karkat said in a growl that surprised him, the pheromone-doused horn curling tendrils of white-hot excitement around his brain. "Do the other horn." Sollux reached down to his own nook for fresh material and Karkat pushed his hand out of the way, slid his own fingers inside to feel the tight clutch around his fingertips again. Sollux, evidently surprised, chirred and eagerly spread for him.

"More." His voice was somehow calm, even as the scent of him screamed for it and pulsed down Karkat's spine.

"I'll give you more," he said without thinking, climbing atop Sollux and chirping low in his throat, withdrawing his fingers and stroking his palm over the egg-filled curve of Sollux's abdomen. Gold-smeared fingers rubbed softly at the base of his other horn.

"Now."

Karkat had expected the first time after the insertion to be slow. Sollux was already stuffed, his body adjusting to the expansion, but thinking was impossible with careful hands rubbing more chemicals into his sensitive horn membranes; the imperative scent whited out his thoughts, set his abdomen alight with need. Before he knew it his hands were planted on the couch and he was already wriggling inside, angling and writhing into Sollux's nook in long coils as Sollux screamed hoarsely and clutched at his back.

"Yes," he gasped insistently, broken up by warbling chirps. "Yes, yeah, wow, KK, _yes_ -"

"Fucking _wow_ ," Karkat said with an effort, "does not, hnn, even begin to. To." Sollux laughed, breathless and nasal.

" _Wowww,_ " he repeated, "KK, you're breeding me-" Karkat breathed out hard to keep control, buried his face in the soft curve of Sollux's throat where neck met shoulder to close his eyes for a moment as his bulge coiled and lashed slower against the internal ridges of Sollux's receptors. His pulse thundered in his ears. The vinyl cover squeaked beneath his clenching hands as his hips jerked in an automatic, frantic motion.

"Oh my god that's fucked up. Say it again."

"Wowww," Sollux repeated sarcastically, baring his fangs in something equal parts grin and grimace. "Come _on_ , KK, harder. Give it to me."

"Fine, don't play along," Karkat snapped, uncoiling and pushing deeper. "Take it."

"Ngh, that-" Sollux shuddered and clenched as he had around the eggs, his nook contracting peristaltically as though to swallow the bulge pounding and squirming inside him. Karkat opened his mouth to say something and a hoarse cry erupted from him instead, his hips snapping forward to get every inch of the feeling he could reach.

"Oh my _god_ ," he moaned, arms quaking at the words and at the rolling pressure gulping him down, milking his bulge as he poured himself into Sollux too soon, too suddenly. He shuddered and lowered himself to his elbows, lowering his head to stare at Sollux's abdomen. Sollux whimpered and seized up beneath him as the soft curve increased by a small but visible increment. His stretched nook clutched in spasms as his untouched bulge poured his own genetic material across his belly to pool on the couch around him, forced to release by the increased pressure inside.

It was far from the first time Karkat had released his material into Sollux, but it was the first time that he retracted and felt no slurry pour out along with him. Only a faint trickle of orange-red marred the puddle of golden material between Sollux's thighs. He exhaled, recovering.

"Fuck, if you do that every time I'm never going to last more than three minutes."

"Get off me," Sollux sighed. "You're hot." Karkat rolled over, rubbing at his horn bases with careful palms to remove as much of the fluid as he could.

"And this stuff. You could bottle it. We could keep it in the hull."

"It doesn't stay potent. If you killed me and kept me in some water you could make an infusion," Sollux offered sardonically, long hands exploring his own abdomen. "Feels weird now. I'll...be ready for laying in half a perigee." Karkat rolled back over, pressed his own hand against the curve. Sollux felt warm, warmer than usual; he wondered if his own stored material heated Sollux from the inside and felt his own perspiring face flush at the thought, too filthy to say out loud. His tired bulge shifted in its sheath.

"It makes no sense for me to kill you to get your pheromones. Who would I even use them with?"

"My dead body. I thought that was obvious, who else would put up with you?" The eggs had stopped shifting, anchored in place as Sollux's holding sac contracted around them and began cementing them against its inner walls. The smooth, hard shells could still be felt.

"Give it a fucking rest, nublord. We've hit quota on weird pailing shit for the next five sweeps at least." He found himself stroking the bump, the place where Sollux stored his genetic contribution. Somehow it felt different than pailing or even going without a pail entirely. He opened his mouth to say something about it and found that, for once, there were no words to put to the concept.

"Yeah, that's fair. You have to admit this was badass."

"I wish we could bottle it," Karkat repeated a little wistfully. "Fucking incredible."

"Okay. Get ready to do it again in about half an hour."

"Seriously?" Sollux grinned, his eyes sparking at the corners in evident satisfaction, and rolled over.

 

* * *

 

Sollux sat up on the couch, running his fingers through his hair to push it off his face as he yawned. The eggs and stored material were a tangible weight inside him as he stood up. They bore down hard on his globes and constricted his bulge in its sheath, a constant low-grade excitement demanding his attention.

Karkat had retreated to a warm ablution and recuperacoon after several contributions and would not return for some time. The eggs had to wait. Sollux trudged to the nutritionblock and dug half of a leftover pizza from the back of the second shelf, examining the beetles and pepperoni for signs of decay before ripping off chunks with his fangs and swallowing them whole. Pepperoni, he considered, was one of the few human contributions to the world that he could tolerate. His nook pulsed with the first hints of soreness. He clenched his muscles and smiled at the ache as he poured a glass of water and drank it in one long pull.

Television proved as uninteresting as usual. Levitating his husktop from his respiteblock, Sollux checked his daily sites with a bored air, feeling the dull throb and the heaviness between his thighs. His bulge pushed halfway from its sheath in vague interest. The pheromones of his body were less effective on him, just as they would quickly lose much of their efficacy on Karkat, but a strange hollowness remained inside him despite the fullness of his egg-stuffed holding sac and his body still felt hungry, longing. Aradia was not online. He stretched, set the husktop aside, and lay down to palpate his abdomen.

Despite his intention to wait until later Sollux found his fingers coaxing his half-extruded bulge from its sheath, teasing around the edge until the full tendril slipped out in a long, slim coil. Idly he revisited the last few hours before he had fallen asleep; Karkat’s pheromone-driven roughness with him, the immediacy of that need, how easy it was for him to provoke it. Drowsing and satisfied, he urged the coil of his bulge up into his waiting hand and teased at the tip with a quiet sigh. Karkat had paid it less attention than usual, chemically driven to make genetic contributions, but the internal pressure on his globes and sheath was a new kind of stimulation that was still more than enough to satisfy. In a haze, Sollux slid the cage of his fingers around the twisting shaft of his bulge, letting it work itself in lazy waves.

Half-asleep, he imagined the machinery of an ovipositor churning eggs into his sac, how it would feel to experience actual quickening inside him. Sollux had never imagined raising living creatures but could easily imagine parasitic inhabitants forcing sensation into parts of him unaccustomed to such solid motion. It was an easy fantasy and a much harder reality. Viable nookworm eggs, which could be raised into saleable nookworms, were an investment at least equivalent to the jelly necessary to incubate them in the first place. After the laying there were live creatures for which Sollux had no interest in caring. In the realm of fantasy, though, there were no effects; Sollux imagined the squirming inside, smaller and with tighter contractions than bulge muscle, the way they would thicken and strengthen on genetic material in his sac until they developed the strength to crawl from his nook.

With little effort, Sollux rolled over and expelled his material into the pail beside the couch. The absence of pressure afforded by his emptied globes would allow him to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

Karkat sighed, grinding the heels of his hands into his tired eyes before staring at his husktop screen again. He had rewritten the same scene three times and it refused to gel. No matter how many times he imagined it playing out in his mind, everything felt blocky and inefficient when he put it into words.

The concupiscent couch, stripped of vinyl and back to its normal squishy purple state, was also no place for effective revisions; he remained in place only because Sollux lay sprawled and asleep beside him. His abdomen, replete with many contributions, bore a slight but immediately noticeable bump. Karkat stared at it for a long moment before going back to his work.

Implantation, fertilization, these concepts were firmly in the pornographic realm and ripe with potential debasement. Trolls had borne no eggs or live young for so many generations that the act of egg-laying was a foreign thing relegated to symbiotic species. He wondered what it meant to Sollux to carry eggs himself. It was the sort of thing he always intended to ask, but that he never managed to bring up; it felt somehow too personal to talk about.

"KK." As little as he understood the underlying thoughts, Karkat knew immediately what it meant when Sollux's eyelids fluttered to reveal the gleaming slits of his eyes. Without being told he set his husktop aside, slid his palm over the firm curve of Sollux's egg-laden body to stroke his half-open bulgeslit.

Generations of disuse had left troll spermatheca vestigial, encroached upon by larger globes capable of producing a greater contribution to the pail. Sollux, swollen with Karkat's genetic material and a full clutch of eggs, had less room for his own material; his bulge extruded in a grateful, trusting coil, pushing into Karkat's waiting hand. He would need his globes milked regularly just to leave space for everything else.

"Does this feel different?" Karkat asked, thumbing the tip to earn a quiet sigh. His own tired bulge squirmed half from its sheath at the scent and the knowledge that Sollux was satisfied.

"Better. More pressure on my globes like this." Sollux spread his legs, eyes half-open and shimmering in the half-light. "Fuck me afterward."

"Maybe you could try saying please, bulgelord."

"Please," he said with no hint of sarcasm or contention, smiling slightly. "Feels too good to ruin it by playing against your bitching, KK."

"Oh." Disarmed, Karkat pushed the husktop a little further toward the head of the couch and let go of Sollux's bulge, crawling to the base of the couch and sitting between the spread thighs. “Then you’ll like this.” Sollux hissed and chirred at the first touch of lips and tongue against his bulgetip; Karkat shivered at the curl of thin hands around his horns, thumbs pressing hard against the sensitive bases as Sollux urged him down. The taste was bitter but potent in the back of his throat, raising heat in Karkat's thorax and making his own bulge coil back to slide into the juncture of his thigh and abdomen.

Sollux's skin felt warm with sleep and a healthy flush, radiating heat against Karkat's hands as he held his legs in place and allowed the squirming tendril of the bulge deeper into his mouth. He let the questing bulgetip push against the back of his throat as he bobbed his head and sucked at the shaft, listening to the choked hitches in the psionic's breath, enjoying the tremble of the hands curled tight around his horns.

"I can't hold it for long with the pressure," Sollux warned. Karkat let go of one thigh and reached up, massaging the delicate swell of his abdomen downward to compress his strained globes. " _Nnnh-_!" Sollux tensed in a sudden spasm, shuddering hard and subsiding beneath the touch. "Fucking shit, KK, what did I say-"

"Mm-hm." Karkat pulled off the bulge just enough to earn a protesting squeeze around his horns, focusing on the feel of eggs and fluid beneath his palm.

"Don't stop, you can't know how that - _hnnn!_ " Sollux threw his head back against the cushions, back arching into the massaging hand. His bulgetip curled desperately against Karkat's tongue. "You can't know what that's, what it feels like, KK, _KK_ , I'm gonna-"

"Mmm." Sollux's reactions, normally passive, were expressive enough to show him that the most effective way to touch him was a soft downward pressure. He pushed gently and insistently and Sollux keened, bulge squirming and coiling down into the waiting clasp of his throat as he finally let it in and swallowed hard around it.

Sollux let out a keening, nonverbal shriek as he released. Karkat swallowed again and again, lost for a moment in the pheromone haze that was Sollux being so ready for him, so easy to please, needing him and his contribution. For several minutes he lay motionless, could only lick and slurp at the slowly retracting bulge in his mouth as his own bulge squirmed against his thigh. "Fuck, that's hot." Sollux's fingers stroked at the bases of his horns, scratching softly at the hornbeds to draw a soft chirr from him. "That's so hot. You...you ready to give that to me?"

"Anything you want," he murmured, getting in one last lick as the bulgetip retracted. "You smell so fucking good like this." Sollux stretched, sighing in satisfaction. When Karkat grasped his hips to roll him over he went easily, raising his still-slim body up on his knees to expose the slickness of his nook.

"Good." He shifted, spreading his legs further. "I need your bulge. Then more sleep. Then bulge again."

"So your normal life, but with more bloating."

"I get more work done than _that_ , KK. And less bulge. It's about seventy-twenty."

"That's only ninety percent in total, nooklick." Karkat leaned close to his spread nook, inhaling the scent of him with only slight hesitation.

"The last ten percent is sleeping, dipfuck, we had three categories. Get to work."

"Well, shit," Karkat muttered, "if you're gonna put it like that, why not."

 

* * *

 

As much as he had expected the pheromones to get to him, Karkat was surprised that his own body was able to deal with the demand. It was harder to throw on pants and go to the nutritionblock for glasses of water and a few bites of legume paste, which he ate from the jar with a spoon, than it was to stay on the concupiscent couch and pour himself into Sollux again and again.

"I'm tired of lying around," Sollux said, draining a glass of water and leaning on the countertop as he gnawed a protein bar with his awkward teeth. The previously faint curve of his belly had grown noticeable, untrollish and strange, after only one week; he seemed not to care about wearing anything. His thighs were smudged red and gold and mingled orange. "Even with my husktop. Pass me that jar, I need more protein."

"Aren't you meant to be lying around chirping right now?" Karkat asked acidly, passing the jar and the spoon and looking at the lean curve of Sollux's spine, the material smeared on his flanks. Intellectually he knew Sollux looked a little bit gross. Physically he felt a lot like spreading him out on the table and licking his nook immaculate. The dichotomy left him testy and indecisive. "Shouldn't I be feeding you this?"

"Mostly. Maybe if this was a pailing vid and not just us being weird in our own hive." Sollux smiled crookedly around the spoon. Even the nutritionblock was host to a few bees, bumbling over the small dishes of pollen and proteins Sollux set out for them. Karkat had grown so used to them that only in quiet moments did he notice their small bodies gliding through the air. "Want to?"

"I want you to take another fucking ablution," Karkat said, and instantly regretted it. Sollux nodded philosophically and dug into the jar again.

"Yeah, that's my next stop."

Over the next few days Karkat was provided ample time to regret his decisions, as Sollux seemed to take his statement as an indication of disinterest and stopped asking for anything but pailing. He could easily use his psionics to retrieve things or move around the hive even as his body grew less mobile. Unlike many of the carriers in pailing videos, it was clear that Sollux needed no physical tending to.

It was understandable that Sollux was capable of caring for himself, and it wasn’t as though Karkat had a biological impetus to do it for him. None of that stopped him from feeling disappointed every time a levitating object landed on the couch or Sollux floated himself back from the ablution trap.

"Hey," Karkat said, frowning as Sollux’s husktop flew across the room and landed neatly on the table. "Ask me next time."

“About what?”

“To get shit for you. I know you don’t need it, but, um. I’ll do it.”

“Yeah, I'm sure that works great in videos where the whole thing gets to take twenty minutes-"

"But that's part of the whole scene for you, isn't it? Getting taken care of when you don't feel like..." Karkat sighed, pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. "I mean I'm going to blow sweaty musclebeast balls at it, but I want it to be good for you. I should be leaving way less dust on this shit than I have been. I’ve been leaving a lot of dust on this shit and I’m kind of sorry, okay?"

Sollux stared at him, disarmed. "I, um. Sure. KK, what do you get out of dusting that shit?"

Karkat paused, taken aback by the question. "I fucked you about one thousand times," he offered after a moment. "One thousand and two if you keep smelling like that." Sollux grinned crookedly.

"Ehehe, two. Good answer. I kind of have a headache from fucking around with my psionics this much, so thanks." Karkat examined him as he reclined, his body still so ordinary and familiar aside from the curve of his abdomen, and considered his question.

 

* * *

 

"So, um, about this. What we're doing. I kind of liked the thought of taking care of you," Karkat admitted, soaping one of Sollux's forearms with an industrious air to avoid making eye contact. The steam rising from the trap left uncomfortable, sweatlike dew on his face. "I know you don’t need it, but when we were watching that porno I, I liked how relaxed the carrier looked. Not like pale porn. Just...satisfaction."

"But you didn't want to carry." Sollux sprawled in the trap, eyes half-closed and faintly glowing. The curvature of his abdomen eclipsed his bulgeslit and concealed his nook. The effect was surreal, explicitly fetishistic in close, familiar surroundings.

"No, I want to be the guy who makes someone feel like that. I want to be..." He paused before moving on to the other arm, raising it to wash beneath. Sollux's delicate musculature remained visible everywhere aside from the swollen, egg-laden abdomen, but somehow Karkat felt more exposed than Sollux and far more self-conscious. The unfairness irritated him. "Good for fucking _something_ , shit. It's not like anyone needs me for anything else."

"Hey, KK, me too." Sollux let out a soft, rusty laugh, pausing to take a deeper breath. "I like what you're doing now. I like how this fucks with my body a little."

"You don't take care of it anyway," Karkat retorted reflexively.

"Wow, really? You think there's some reason I might not give a lot of shits?" He laughed again, chirring breathlessly as Karkat sponged off the fine lines of his clavicles and the visible ribs beneath his arms. That much was familiar, comfortable territory and easy to explore.

"Yeah," Karkat said, subdued at the heaviness growing in his thorax, and slipped a hand into the water to change the subject. Sollux chirred louder at the fingers stroking his bulgeslit. "I mean, I don't know if you're talking about your personal issues or society or some shit-"

"And you'll seriously kill this wiggly with that conversation," Sollux interrupted, squirming and relaxing against the wall of the trap as Karkat coaxed his bulge from its sheath. Golden material flowed through the water in twisting ribbons as Karkat paused to pull out the drain plug.

"I'll refill the trap in a minute. No use getting you dirty again." Sollux closed his eyes and sighed in relief, showing the tips of his fangs in a grin as Karkat wrapped the sponge around his bulge and squeezed, slow and rhythmic. The pressure of the eggs and his filled spermatheca pressed constantly down against his globes, making it easy to finish him off; a few gentle, twisting squeezes and his diminished material darkened the sponge, his breath escaping in another soft sigh as he retracted.

"Thanks," he murmured, his expression glazed and satisfied. Karkat wrung out the sponge and mopped the floor of the trap, rinsing it clean before refilling it. His own half-extruded bulge retracted gradually as the water rose. "So this is what you get out of it?"

"If we have a serious chat about _my_ horseshit it would kill your wiggly stone dead for about a sweep."

"Hey, KK. I can't get out of this trap without you or psionics and you're getting me off by squeezing my junk with a sponge. I kind of get off on being used for weird shit."

"Now who's killing the wigglies? This is the mystery we'll have to solve next, but we won't, because it's you."

"Fuck you, I just think I've gone way past the boundaries of anything you can possibly say unless you want me on top. I'll dislocate a hip."

"Fine, whatever. I guess I couldn't have contributed to a pail." Karkat shrugged, turning off the water. "You know the drones would have culled me if I tried. I'm a washout." He reached down, scrubbed the residual golden streaks from Sollux's thighs. The water lapped quietly against the sides of the trap. Faintly he heard the buzzing of bees compiling in the next room. "I can do this for you." Sollux slid down the trap wall, exposing his nook and chirping low in his throat at the touch of the sponge.

"Okay, so you're contributing to me. That's pretty hot."

"Yeah, sort of. But..." Karkat shrugged again, still carefully avoiding eye contact. Sollux's nook, well-stuffed, was tender; he squirmed at even gentle bathing, hissing softly. "Not on the same terms, you know? Not for the Empire. Which is gone, so I admit this is stupid."

"No, I get it. KK." It was difficult for Karkat to tell, peering from the corners of his eyes, whether Sollux was looking at him or not. "We grew up like that. It fucks you up."

"Yeah," he said more roughly than he wanted, stricken with inexplicable humiliation at the sympathy as he poured chitin cleanser into his hand and began scrubbing Sollux's hornbeds, working his way to the surrounding wiry hair. This much Sollux could easily do himself even without the use of psionics, but he leaned into the touch and his expression went soft, spoiled and trusting. Karkat flushed at the sight, oddly grateful for the heat of the steam that concealed his arousal.

"I can't get used to all this domestic shit, coding and getting paid for it. Having my body and knowing it's mine. I can do whatever I want with it. Weird."

"Sollux." Karkat stroked a horn slowly, teasing with his thumb through the slickness of the cleanser as his bulge curled halfway from its sheath. Sollux sighed, glazed and contented.

"It's fucked up to say, but it was kind of easy back when I only had two choices for how my life was gonna go. Shit, sorry I pushed this conversation. Probably in the top quartile of my life decisions, which are nothing if not an endless cavalcade of shitty things to be sorry about."

"Hey." Karkat paused, staring at him until he looked back. "You hear that?"

"What?"

Karkat withdrew his soapy hands from Sollux's hair, placed his index finger and thumb together. "Pretty sure I hear a tiny violin, Sollux," he whispered intensely, staring at his face and watching his surprise as it darkened into irritation, a tracery of light forming around his horns.

"Oh my god, KK, you fucking chutelick-"

"Shut up, asshole. It's playing for us, not just you."

"Oh. Ehehehe," Sollux snickered, wiping suds from his forehead. "Yeah, I think I hear it too. Sure. It's all so fucking tragic, KK. Our lives are pain."

"Right, because of all this pailing we've been doing and how we don't have to die afterward in horrifying, bowel-twisting ways in defiance of all hope." Karkat picked up the bowl he had placed at the edge of the trap, turning on the water to fill it up. "And how I'm getting you off in the trap and washing your horns for you and being kind of awkwardly turned on by it. It's just so hard."

"How AA is totally safe and her lifespan isn't an issue and we can talk whenever we want. And you're doing okay, and I'm somehow not dead. I can go into space on my own terms if I want. I'm not sure how to cope with all this bright fucking future we got." Sollux laughed awkwardly, bowing his head as Karkat poured water over his horns and rinsed his hair. "Oh, shit, I meant that last part. I have no idea. What are we doing right now?"

"No one knows, dipfuck." Karkat sighed, draining the water. “Whatever.”

Sollux curled gratefully on the couch after it had been wiped down, falling asleep almost instantly and leaving Karkat free to use the ablution trap himself. He stared at the ceiling through the curling steam and stroked two soapy fingers idly over his neglected nook, washing.

Away from the pheromone smell something about his thoughts felt clearer, sharper. He missed the haziness at once. It was easy to let go and submit without question to the demands of Sollux's body. It felt good to be needed and considerably less so to think about why, about the future and how either one of them would fit into it, about his own uncertainties. With a sigh he poured chitin cleanser into his hands again, scrubbing at his hornbeds with a vigor that drove thoughts from his mind.


	4. Chapter 4

"Come on," Karkat murmured, wrapping an arm around Sollux's thorax from behind to hold him upright. Sollux panted in exertion and leaned back against him, spreading his thighs and chirping breathlessly at the slow, cautious motion of a bulge against his nook. The eggs beneath the palm of Karkat's other hand had grown almost indiscernible beneath the softness of the fluid-filled spermatheca. Even if he could fit into his overlarge shirts the change in his body would be obvious; Sollux was nearly ready to lay. "Looking forward to when your bulge can get to me again so you can plow me for a change."

"Yeah. Hurry," Sollux ordered. "Can't do this for long." Karkat complied, wriggling into his overused nook with care. "My balance is off."

"Use your psionics, chutemunch." He buried his face in the curve between Sollux's neck and shoulder, furtively pressing a kiss to the skin there as he inhaled the scent. Sollux's nook felt the same, clinging and contracting; he never grew accustomed to the sensation, the oddness that was his prematerial being drained away.

"Fuck me before my abdomen splits off my thorax, nooklicker."

"Shit, that's not hot. I've got you." He slid his hand beneath the heaviness there, holding it up for all that it made his muscles shake with effort. His bulge lashed sharply despite his attempt to be gentle and Sollux moaned softly, letting his head fall back against Karkat's shoulder. "Does it hurt?"

"I like it."

"You, um..." Karkat hefted the eggs, his hand curled tight against the softness there. "You like being full of my slurry like this?" Sollux snickered, then let out a choked groan as the bulge lashed inside him again. "Getting bred like a mother grub?"

"Oh. _Yes_ ," Sollux gasped, nook constricting tight enough to draw a whine from Karkat's throat. "Why didn't you start saying that shit earlier in this, nnh, in this process-"

"You weren't stuffed yet."

"I thought you weren't into it." Karkat stopped momentarily, taken aback.

"What, filling you up?" Sollux's thin fingers seized at his hand, not to move it but to push it harder against the solid mass of eggs inside. He shivered and pressed his lips to the back of Sollux's neck, his bulge curling and lashing again. His legs trembled as excitement rushed in a warm, lazy wave from thorax to abdomen. "Fucking incredible."

"No. Playing it like that." Sollux squirmed and moved his legs in an effort to push down against him. "Like you're using me."

"You like it. I, uh." Karkat cleared his throat. "Want to do things you like."

"Great. More."

"Can you hold yourself on all fours?" Sollux exhaled, shuddering at the massage of clustered eggs against his constricted globes.

"Yeah, not for long."

"You don't need long. Ready?" Sollux cried out when pushed down, a gratifyingly throaty sound trailing into a wail as Karkat shoved into him in a long, rough undulation. "You just need more slurry in you."

"Wow, yeah, _yes_." Karkat curled a hand around his hip and fucked into him harder, listening to the breathless scream he let out, the harsh sound of his panting as the ridges of his receptors clamped down for more friction. "Nnh - like that, good, KK-"

"No room for your own geneslime anymore, this is..." Karkat took a deep breath, arousal pooling in his abdomen at how transparently turned on Sollux was by it, the way he lowered his face into his arms to muffle his sounds in the concupiscent couch. "This is what you're good for."

" _Hnnmmm._ " Sollux pushed back against his thrusting in a sudden fluid motion. "Ngh. What _you're_ good for. Give it."

"Yeah." Karkat almost smiled, holding his hips tight and helping him move. Sollux's nook squeezed and rippled, tired but still trying to swallow his bulge, still wanting what he had to offer. "Anything you want." Sollux lifted his head and cried out hoarsely, golden fluid spattering beneath him as his muscles clenched and spasmed. The material left in his constricted globes barely left a puddle.

"Nnh. Okay, c'mon." He turned his head, expression glazed with pleasure. "So good. Don’t stop.”

“Yeah.” He strained harder toward relief, not wanting to keep Sollux in an uncomfortable position for long when he could already see his lean muscles shaking with effort. “Yeah, I-”

“Needed you, KK," Sollux said clearly. "I'm. I'm glad you're...doing this with me."

"O-oh." His bulge lashed, curling sharp and excited as the words coalesced in his brain.

"So much." The snicker Karkat expected didn't follow the words; Sollux's visible eye in profile was glassy but bright, strange. "So. So...nnh, so glad you're here. KK. Thank you." Karkat let out a choked noise without knowing or controlling it as he leaned over Sollux's back and pumped his hips in a twitchy, frantic motion. “Want you,” Sollux murmured, clearly watching his reactions. “Just...you. More.”

“Nnnnh, no,” he panted, something in him welling over with bizarre longing. “Don’t, you-” Sollux’s nook clenched at the sound of his voice. He gasped, shuddered, release building hot and bright in his abdomen. “You don’t have to.”

“ _Please_.” Sollux’s expression was impossible to read, a smile or a grimace that showed his teeth in the semi-darkness. “Thank you. You’re, you’ve been good. Feels so good. F...flushed for you. KK. _Karkat_.”

“Hnn-” He felt himself uncurl in a fluid motion, pushing in deep and keening low in his throat as he released. Sollux fell heavily to his side immediately after the retraction, breathing hard. His lips drew back to expose his fangs.

"Wow," he sighed. "That's all I can hold. Seriously."

"What the fuck was all that at the end?" Karkat asked, curling up behind him and staring in discomfiture at the curve of his spine. A strange sensation roiled in his abdomen. Sollux would, when prompted, admit feelings. There had never been doubt about it. It was different to hear him say it like that, his voice soft and needy as though it were everything he wanted. As though Karkat's attention were a gift.

"You like it," Sollux murmured. "I want to do things you like." The air went still; not even bees broke the silence.

"Mm." Karkat went quiet as well, processing the words in vague shock as his bloodpusher slowed and he began to control his breathing again. “Okay.”

"I mean...Fuck.” Sollux sighed again, rolling onto his back. His eyes cast light over his cheekbones in the semi-darkness, outlining the gloss of perspiration on his skin. “Okay. We've done a lot of weird shit lately. I think you thought it was weird, but then you did it anyway. Which is also weird. We're kind of bad at negotiating our weird shit."

"Hey asshole, say 'weird' some more."

"Fuck you. I was saying thanks."

"I like the weird shit," Karkat mumbled, burying his face in a cushion in an attempt to recover from the rush and the uncomfortable atmosphere that followed, the heaviness in his thorax. "If I wasn't into it I wouldn't have done it. Don’t force yourself."

"No, fuck you, you’re missing the point!” Sollux snapped. “It means shit to me." The light of his eyes spilled over in slow red-blue swirls into the air.

"I fucking like it!"

"I'm being serious, fuckstick!"

“Good,” Karkat snarled heatedly. “It's never too late to learn something new!”

“ _Fine._ ” In the following awkward silence Sollux’s breathing went soft and even enough that Karkat began to slide soundlessly from the couch, seeking his husktop and the half-completed chapter he had been writing. “KK,” he said quietly as the metal frame creaked. “Seriously.” He trailed off. Karkat paused, unsure whether to look behind him. His hands rested on the edge of the couch and he smelled the faint ozone whiff of psionic energy, heard a soft electric crackle in the dimness. The dark television flickered at the snap.

“I know,” he said uncertainly, and fled to his respiteblock.

 

* * *

 

Even with his teeth gritted, Sollux failed to stop the muffled whimpering that came unbidden from his throat as he clamped his thighs around the hard curve of the pail. The vinyl sheet beneath him stuck unpleasantly to his skin, the couch behind him the only solid thing to lean against as he knelt on the floor. The first egg pushed at the inflamed opening of his sac and he arched his back at the sharp pain of dilation.

His body without jelly was finally remembering how to reject solid intrusions; trolls were no longer built for laying, were built for bulges or toys that could be pulled out or genetic material that could flow out on its own. The pain was more than he had expected. The egg popped past the opening of his sac with a release of pressure that made his horns crackle and his own bulge uncoil from its sheath, less in arousal than in desperate relief. He clamped a hand over his mouth to muffle his scream as the egg forced its way down the tender channel of his nook.

“What the hell is th - what the fuck!” Karkat shouted, rushing into the room from his respiteblock. Sollux groaned, casting a bleary look at the hallway and blinking back tears. “What the chuteslurping fuck, you didn’t call me!?”

“Couldn’t-” His eyes went wide, lightning cracking from his horns like a gunshot as his spermatheca released stored material to fertilize the released egg in his nook. His bulge curled hard against his abdomen, his hands flailing behind him to seek and clutch at the couch. The egg and material gushed into the pail with an audible clunk and a release of tension that left him breathless, lightheaded, his shoulders twinging with the effort of holding his heavy body upright. Sollux never had really understood his limits, not once in all the times he had lived and died by them, and here they were again. “F-fuck, _help._ ”

Sollux, expecting Karkat to snap back, was startled by the speed he crossed the room. “What do I do?” He sat on the couch and ineffectively tried to pry Sollux’s clenched hands from their deathgrip on the cushion. “Why didn’t we practice this shit!?”

“Yeah, should have ordered fucking schoolfeeds for _nnngh_ -” Sollux arched again, breath escaping in a ragged groan as the second egg escaped the clutch in his sac. Dimly he felt Karkat’s warm hands disengaging his grip, Karkat sliding in to sit on the couch that stood behind him. He gripped Karkat's knees for support as the second gush of pent-up genetic material cascaded into the pail.

“It hurts? I thought it was-”

“Oh, _oh_.” Sollux shuddered and writhed at the wrongness of the feeling, the pain of the third egg nudging its way out too slowly. Tears coursed down his face. “Didn’t know it would...thought I could, could overdo it and it wouldn’t hurt like, _hnngh_ ,” he groaned as the third egg worked its way out into his nook. “KK, it hurts-” Shaking hands locked around his upper arms and Sollux leaned back when pulled, let himself be cradled between Karkat’s solid legs. The third gush still made him writhe and whine in his throat but at least, he thought bitterly, it could not make him collapse if he passed out.

“How many have you laid?”

“Th-three.” Sollux closed his mouth around the scream that wanted to follow the word; the fourth egg came out of his sac more easily and he tried to imagine something beyond the pain, something that might take the shape of pleasure if he could just descend far enough to reach it without losing consciousness.

“We can do this.” Karkat sounded like even he knew it was a platitude. “You can do this,” he corrected. “I’m here.” A warm hand cradled Sollux’s shrinking abdomen, kneading with something like tenderness as Sollux keened and expelled the fourth egg from his nook. “Oh, oh shit, okay. Weird. I’ve got you. We’ve got this. It’s, it’s happening.”

“I fucked it up,” he panted. Thick material dripped from his nook into the pail with soft plips that would be arousing if the fifth egg weren’t pushing its way from him already, his body relearning the mechanism of expulsion at a dizzying rate. His bulge hung limp and scared against his thigh as his bloodpusher made a sickening attempt to flee up his throat. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, no.” Karkat kneaded softly at him, the pressure against his diminishing abdomen distracting Sollux from the pain as the fifth egg slipped out and was washed into the pail by a red-orange flood. The retained material felt thicker than usual, harder to expel, as though his body had concentrated it over the long wait. “We did it right. It’s, um, it’s going to be okay, okay? Okay.”

“Needed you here.” He shook uncontrollably, the words coming out in shuddering gasps. For a minute he regretted everything: the sharp-sweet ache behind his ribs, the bruises between his thighs where the pail bit into his flesh, his inability to know what he could take or give or communicate. The entire situation felt so overdramatic, so laughably stupid. Even in the throes of incapacitating spasms he found it ridiculous. “I meant it. Wanted it to be you.”

“I know. I know, just. Don’t die like this on my watch. A-again.” Sollux snickered despite the contractions wracking his body, letting his head fall back against Karkat’s soft abdomen. “I’m not fucking around!”

“Tiny violins, KK.” He laughed breathlessly as the sixth egg lodged tight for a moment before popping out and cascading from his nook, fully slicked with material from the repeated releases. His groin muscles throbbed with the effort of clutching the pail beneath him. Karkat wiped ineffectually at his face and smeared golden tears across his cheeks, cursing under his breath in a thick-sounding voice. “Don’t cry.”

“I’m not,” Karkat sniffled, so obviously overwhelmed that Sollux laughed again in disbelief. The seventh egg caught him up short, strangled the raspy noise in his throat. “Fuck you, _you’re_ crying. Don’t cry.”

“I’m doing that, that’s exactly what I’m doing.”

“Quit it.” Karkat gripped one of Sollux’s horns, rubbing at his eyes as his nook poured out the seventh egg. His tears streamed involuntarily at the heavy release. “Seriously. I’m...I’m going to flip out if I have to watch you like this. I thought you’d be getting off.”

“I will later,” Sollux protested, realizing as he said it that it was true. The sound of the pail beneath him, the sight of his own body releasing, spasming helplessly, flattening out bit by bit: everything was hot in concept but the burning ache between his thighs. “I might be able to now.” Karkat’s hand on his horn was also good in a way, gently rubbing at the sensitive velvet, the fingers on his face stroking tender enough to raise a flutter in his laboring nook. The eighth egg slipped from his sac more easily, working its way down. “It could help.”

“I-I’ll help.” Karkat’s hand moved cautiously down his strained abdomen, papping at his limp bulge as though trying to wake it up. Sollux snickered, then moaned at the release of his spermatheca washing the egg from his body in a torrent. Karkat flinched back at his full-body shudder. “What can I do?”

“Just...try touching me.” He sighed, trying to force his body to relax as Karkat palmed his bulge and thumbed gently at the tip. “My horns. It was, nhhgh, it…” He tried to move his stiffening legs and found the large pail heavy between them, already well more than half-full. The ninth egg nudged at the stretched opening of his sac and left him breathless.

“Four more. Look, it's...it's going so fast.” Karkat’s lips and tongue against the velvet of his small horn were like a benediction as he kissed the base, licked softly at it despite the hair. Sollux chirred through the pain, limbs twitching. His bulge curled in a jerky, disjointed motion.

“Good,” he managed. His abdomen felt less tender despite the swelling of his nook and he could place his hands there, could massage his abused holding sac through the mostly-emptied spermatheca and feel the remaining eggs loose and ready inside him. Something in him went warm and pliant as he maneuvered them. Karkat threaded his bulge carefully through gentle fingertips and squeezed him near the tip, leaning down to kiss the base of a larger horn. The ninth egg popped into his nook with only a twinge of hot pain. “Three.” It washed out of him, the release almost like pleasure once the pressure had passed.

“You’re okay,” Karkat told him, voice shaking even as Sollux’s bulge grew interested in his hand. “You’re close, you’re, you’re not going to die or anything. Who’s going to die? Not _you_.” He snuffled loudly next to Sollux’s ear before sucking at the base of a large horn.

“The fuck are you talking about?” He blinked away residual tears, his body sore but no longer throbbing in agony, the pain no longer wracking and awful. The tenth egg made him wince as it pushed at the swollen opening. Nine previous eggs had irritated the delicate flesh despite his gradual dilation. “The horn thing helps, do that.”

“Okay.” Karkat, sniffling, latched on to one horn and stroked the opposite with his free hand. The tenth egg popped free with less pressure behind it, painful for only an instant as it glided down his lubricated passage and extruded itself in a flood of warmth. The material sloshed heavily into the pail and Sollux could listen to it in the momentary lull between eggs, think about what it meant, enjoy the sight of his abdomen shrinking slowly inward as his bulge twined softly and thrust its ridged length into Karkat’s curled hand.

“Oh,” he said in wonder, cradled and upheld despite his shaking, weakening legs. His nook softened, dilated further in arousal. “Oh, wow. Two more.” He could imagine how egg-binding occurred without the right amount of jelly as the eleventh egg caught in the swollen bottleneck of his holding sac, smooth shell pushing painfully against the inflamed tissue. Karkat switched horns, going down on one of the smaller ones. Sollux shivered and felt a pleasurable pressure replacing the urgent pain in his abdomen, fingerpads caressing the velvet of his large horn at the base where the feeling was best. The eleventh egg slid free into his aching nook. “Almost there.”

“Mmph.” The next torrent of material spattered the hand working Sollux’s bulge. Karkat flinched but continued to stroke methodically, adding a twisting upstroke that made Sollux quiver on his jellied legs.

“Good, it’s...it’s okay.” He could no longer feel the egg beneath his hand, pressing his fingers into the residual softness. His abdomen would take some time to return to normal, but only a few contributions and the final egg remained inside. “KK. We did it.” The twelfth egg lodged in place with a merciful absence of the pressure that had made the first eggs so agonizing. He leaned back against Karkat, moving his hips into the touch and letting his bulge be worked off in careful strokes. "Just a little more. Okay. Okay." His release pushed the egg out at last and he gasped, keening softly as his spermatheca emptied itself in a long gush. A small spurt of gold material trickled down his bulge and Karkat’s fingers, dripping into the red-orange beneath.

“That’s…” Karkat took in a long sniff. Sollux fell back against him when his horns were released, limp and panting. “That’s it?” A wavering psionic light moved the pail to safety, set it on the table.

“Yeah.” With some difficulty Sollux straightened out his legs and sat on the vinyl, rubbing at his muscles as his bulge retracted into its newly depressurized sheath. “Wow." He laughed raspily, flexing his knees as a rush of relief hit his brain and left him shivering. "Fuck, that part was way harder than I-” He trailed off, looking straight up at Karkat above him. “KK, are you okay?”

“Fucking great!” Karkat said, wiping at his own eyes and striping his cheek red-orange. A terrible looseness hung at the corners of his mouth, red glistening along his lower eyelids as he blinked away moisture. “Nothing about what just happened could ever conceivably weird me out, or remind me of fucking shitty past events I’ve seen involving all your hemorrhaging orifices, or, you know, times I couldn’t...” He shuddered, hiding his face in his palms. “Yeah, no, I’m fine. I’m totally fine! Don’t look at me.”

“Oh my god.” Sollux floundered around in an attempt to force his legs to cooperate and discovered his muscles were gelatin. “I…um. I can do this. Hold on.” Psionically he lifted himself to the couch and stared at Karkat, the hunched-over shape of him so solid and familiar. “Talk?"

“Don’t want to think about it,” Karkat said levelly, breathing in long, thirsty gulps of air.

“Okay.” Sollux stared at his hands, looked at the filled pail on the table. Light attempted and failed to stream through the window shades, leaving only a gritty half-darkness. His body felt pithed, numb and unwilling to follow his commands. After what he had recently put it through he found himself unable to blame it for not listening to him. “I guess this could be a pale thing, should I try to get KN-”

“ _No._ ” Karkat cleared his throat, wiped one last time at his face. “Listen. I’ll hash everything out with her in actual depth later on. You’re okay, right?”

“Yeah. I mean, exhausted and dumb as shit, but that’s nothing new. Fuck. Can I touch you or something?”

“Okay.” Sollux hesitated before reaching over with his sore arms, gathering Karkat awkwardly against his bony side. His own muscles had stopped quivering and he could feel Karkat’s breaths against him, shaky and uneven. Shame curled in his gut like a parasite. “See, you clearly didn’t die, plus you’re comically awful at aftercare, so this is stupid.”

“You’re right. I mean, not about you being stupid, just about the not dying. And also about me being shit at this.” Karkat shoved at him until he flopped bonelessly over on the couch, rolled him over on his back. “Oof.” Karkat, crawling over his prostrate form, rested his head on Sollux’s bony chest. It was strange to feel him so close again, unhindered by the swell of abdomen.

“You really are.” Sollux looked down at the fluff of his hair, the nubs of his horns protruding. He buried his fingers in it to scratch gently at the hornbeds.

“You didn’t hurt me,” he said slowly. “If you’re freaking out because you saw me die like that. It was a long time ago, KK.” Karkat sighed heavily. “I wanted you here. I just didn’t call you because I fucked up trying to...to say something decent last night. Which is counterintuitive and stupid, kind of how I operate. Stupidly. Which isn't your fault.”

“Yeah. Keep talking.”

“Ehehe, I’m surprised you want to hear it after last night.”

“I’ll put up with it.”

“Cool. Thanks. I needed you today.” He dug his fingers harder into the hornbeds, massaging around both horns the way he knew Karkat preferred. Slow static engulfed his brain; he recognized the telltale signs of mental exhaustion and forced himself past it, scrabbling for the right thing to say. “Couldn’t have pulled them out with psionics without fucking myself up. I needed your help. Thank you.” A fizzling violet aura engulfed the bucket, lifted a single egg from the material there. He carried it over with far too much effort and dropped it to the couch beside himself.

“Huh.” Karkat stared at the smooth, dimpled surface, still faux-chitinous in texture but colored a rich orange-red. “We dyed some eggs. Well, thank god _that_ got done.”

“Look how much of your color it got, that’s…” Sollux gathered his thoughts. “That’s how much you contributed, KK. Not to her or the drones or whatever, but...you know. You did good. Thanks.”

“Yeah. I did.” Karkat exhaled. His breath had grown even, soft. “You're still terrible at this, you fucking wreck. Let’s get cleaned up.”

“Sure. Thanks for...dealing with me, I guess. Shit.” Sollux sat up with effort, his abdominal muscles quaking beneath the still-loose skin. Psionics surrounded him in a weak violet halo to lift him from the couch and Karkat’s hand closed around his forearm, holding him down.

“I know you can get there like that,” Karkat said evenly, “and probably without running your face into a wall more than twice, which would normally be fucking hilarious to watch.” Sollux’s legs trembled beneath him, his body off-balance and strange in its lightness as Karkat held his arm to keep him level. “But let’s do it like this. For me.”

Sollux looked down at him, at the darkness limning his ochre eyes, and grinned. “Sounds like a plan, KK.”


End file.
